On Thu, Jan 05, 2012 at 03:33:58PM +0100, Marc-André Lureau wrote:
> On Thu, Jan 5, 2012 at 3:28 PM, Zeeshan Ali (Khattak)
> <zeeshanak gnome org>wrote:
>
> > On Thu, Jan 5, 2012 at 10:42 AM, Christophe Fergeau <cfergeau redhat com>
> > wrote:
> > > While updating the FSF address in the license file, I noticed we are
> > > using the older LGPLv2 instead of LGPLv2.1. The differences between
> > > the 2 are minor, I think we should go with the newer one.
> >
> > ACK from my side but since its a licensing matter I'd want another
> > ACK on this one before re-licensing. Marc-Andre?
>
>
> I think I took it from gtk+, without thinking more.
>
> No idea what that changes and if we should really worry/care.
>
> If you have a good case, please explain, otherwise I don't think we need to
> move.
My reasoning is that the differences between the 2 licences are minor, but
the FSF still cared enough to update the licence 8 years after its initial
release, so to my eyes it means that these changes were important enough,
and that we probably should use the new one.
The differences are:
* minor wording changes in the preamble
* the last paragraphs of the preamble were changed (this is the explanation
about why/when to use the LGPL)
* The paragraph below was added to the licence:
b) Use a suitable shared library mechanism for linking with the
Library. A suitable mechanism is one that (1) uses at run time a
copy of the library already present on the user's computer system,
rather than copying library functions into the executable, and (2)
will operate properly with a modified version of the library, if
the user installs one, as long as the modified version is
interface-compatible with the version that the work was made with.
* minor wording changes in the licence (compile replaced with combine in
one place, source code replaced with materials in another place, mention
that the licence can be applied to programs as well as libraries, and "to
enforce compliance to" replaced by "to enforce compliance with"
As you can see, this is not a lot of differences, and I trust the FSF
lawyers when they say this one is better and should be used :) Apart from
this, I don't really care :)
Christophe
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